Read Ebook: Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland by Baring Gould S Sabine Diemer M Zeno Michael Zeno Illustrator

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Ebook has 1119 lines and 77960 words, and 23 pages

Asmund hesitated a moment before answering; but presently he said, "I hardly know what to say of him. He is unruly, sullen, makes no friends, and he has been a constant cause of vexation to me."

Thorkel answered, "That is a bad prospect; however, let him come with me to Thingvalla, and I shall be able to see on the journey of what stuff he is made."

To this Asmund agreed; and right glad was Grettir to think he was to go to the great law-gathering.

Thorkel had sixty men with him, and he rode in some state; for, as already said, he was a great man. The way led over the great desolate waste, called the Two-days-ride; but as on this expanse there were few halting-places, the grass most scanty, and not sufficient to allow of a stay, the party rode across it down to the settled lands nearer the coast as quickly as they could, and reached Fleet-tongue in time to sleep; so they took the bridles off their horses, and let them graze with their saddles on. Their road had lain among the lakes, from which issued the rivers that united above Biarg. In each lake floated a pair of swans. Often they heard the loud hoarse cry of the great northern diver; but there was hardly any grass, for the moor lies high, is swept by the icy blasts from the glacier mountains to the south, and is made up of black sand. Before them all day had stood towering into the sky the Eyreksjokull, a mountain with perfectly precipitous sides of black basalt, domed over with glittering ice. It resembles an immense bridecake. At one place this mountain in former times had gaped, and poured forth a fiery stream of lava that ran to the lakes, and for a while converted them to steam. One can still see whence this great fiery river issued from the mountain. Little did Grettir think then as he passed under it, a boy of fourteen, that, for the three most lonely, wretched years of his life, that great glacier-crowned mountain was to be the one object on which his eye would rest.

The men were all very tired after their long ride, and they slept till late next morning, lying about on the scant herbage, around a fire made of the roots of trailing willows that they had dug out of the sand.

When they awoke many of the horses had strayed, and some had rolled in the sand, burst their girths and shaken off their saddles. But they could not have gone any great distance, for they were all hobbled. In Iceland thick woollen ropes are put round the legs of the horses, below the hocks, and twisted together into a knot with a knuckle-bone. This serves as a secure hobble, and the wool being soft does not gall the skin.

It was customary in those days for every one to take his own provisions with him, and most of those who went to the great assize carried meal-bags athwart their saddles. Grettir found his horse at last, but not his meal-bag, which had come off, and was lost; for the saddle was turned under the belly of his cob.

The horses could not have strayed far, not only because they were hobbled, but also because the Tongue where they had been turned loose was a narrow strip of land between two rivers; but then the slope was considerable in places, and the meal-bag might have rolled down into the water.

As Grettir was running about hunting for his bag, he saw another man in the same predicament. What is more, he saw that the rest of the party, impatient to get on their way, would tarry no longer for them, and were defiling down the hill to cross the river.

Grettir was in great distress. Just then he saw the man run very directly in one course, and at the same moment Grettir saw something white lying under a mass of lava. It was towards this that the fellow was running. Grettir ran towards it also. It was a meal-sack. The man reached it first, and threw it over his shoulder.

"What have you got there?" asked Grettir, coming up panting.

"My meal-sack," answered the fellow.

"Let me look at it," said Grettir. "It may be mine, not yours. Let me look before you appropriate it."

This the man refused to do.

Grettir's suspicion was confirmed, and he made a catch at the sack, and tried to drag it away from the fellow.

"Oh, yes!" sneered the man--who was a servant at a farm called The Ridge, in Waterdale, and his name Skeggi,--"Oh, yes! you Middlefirthers think you will have everything your own way."

"That is not it," answered Grettir. "Let each man take his own. If the sack be yours, keep it; if mine, I will have it."

"It is a pity Audun is not here," scoffed the serving-man, "or he would trip up your heels and throttle you, as he did on the ice when golfing."

"But as he is not here," retorted Grettir, "you are not like to get the better of me."

Skeggi suddenly took his axe by the haft and hewed at Grettir's head. Grettir saw what he was at, and instantly put up his left hand and caught the handle below where Skeggi's hand held it; wrenched it out of his grasp, and struck him with it, so that his skull was cleft. The thing was done in a moment, and Grettir had done it in self-preservation and without premeditation. He was but a boy of fourteen, and this was a full-grown stout churl.

Grettir at once seized the meal-bag, saw it was his own, and threw it across his saddle. Then he rode after the company. Thorkel Krafla rode at the head of his party, and he had no misgiving that anything untoward had taken place.

But, when Grettir came riding up with his meal-bag, the men asked him if he had left Skeggi still in search of his. Grettir answered in song:

"A rock Troll did her burden throw Down on Skeggi's skull, I trow. O'er the battle-ogress saw I flow Ruby rivers all aglow. She her iron mouth a-gape Did the life of Skeggi take."

This sounds like nonsense; to understand it one must have a notion of what constituted poetry in the minds of Icelanders and Northmen. With them the charm of poetry consisted in never calling anything by its right name, but using instead of it some far-fetched similitude or periphrasis. Thus--the burden of the rock Troll is iron. The Troll is the spirit of the mountain, and the heaviest thing found in the mountain is iron. The battle-ogress is the axe which bites in battle. The verses that the Norse poets sang were a series of conundrums, and the hearers puzzled their brains to make out the sense. This time they soon understood what Grettir meant, and the men turned and went back to the Tongue, and there found Skeggi dead.

Grettir went on to Thorkel, and in few words, and to the point, told how things had fallen out. He was not the aggressor. He had merely defended himself.

Thorkel was much troubled, and he told Grettir that he might either come on to the assize or go home; that this act of man-slaughter would be investigated at the law-gathering, and judgment given upon it.

Grettir agreed to go on, and see how matters would turn out for him.

That evening they arrived at Thingvalla.

The great plain of Thingvalla is entirely composed of lava. At some remote period before Iceland was colonized a beautiful snowy cone of mountain, called "The Broad Shield," poured forth a deluge of molten rock, which ran in a fiery river down a valley for some miles, half-choking it up, and then spread out over a wide plain where anciently there had been a great lake. Then all cooled, but after the cooling, or whilst it was in process, there came a great crack, crack. The great mass of lava must have been poured over some subterranean caverns; at any rate the whole plain snapped and sank down a good many feet, the lava becoming cracked and starred like glass. Nowadays, one cannot cross the plain because it is all traversed with these fearful cracks, chasms the bottom of which is filled with black water. Where the plain sank deepest there water settled and formed the beautiful Thingvalla Lake.

At the side of one of the cracks where the plain broke off and sank is a very curious pinnacle of black rock, and this was called the Hanging Rock, as criminals were hung from it over the chasm.

In one place two of the cracks unite, and there is a high mound of blistered lava covered with turf and flowers between them. That is called the Law Hill, because the judge and his assessors sat there, and no one could get to them, nor could the accused get away across the chasms.

Now it was the law at this time in Iceland that when any man had been killed his nearest relatives came to the assize, and the slayer appeared by proxy and offered blood-money--that is to say, to pay a fine to the relations, and so patch up the quarrel. But if they refused the money then they were at liberty to pursue and kill him. There were no police then. If the relations wanted to have the criminal punished they must punish him themselves.

Upon this occasion the case was discussed in the court on the finger of rock between the two chasms, the people standing on the further sides of these gulfs, listening, but unable to come a step nearer; and Thorkel appeared for Grettir and offered to pay the blood-money. The relations of the dead Skeggi, after a little fuss, agreed to accept a certain sum, and Thorkel at once paid it. But the court ordered that, as Grettir had acted with undue violence, and as there was no evidence except his word that Skeggi had made the first attack, he should be outlawed, and leave Iceland for three winters. If he set his foot in Iceland till three winters had passed, his life was forfeit. He was allowed a moderate and reasonable time for finding a ship that would take him out of the country.

When the assize was over all rode home, and the way that Thorkel and Grettir went was up the valley that had been half-choked with the lava that rolled down from Broad Shield. They came to a small grassy plain with a gently-sloping hill rising out of it, a place where games took place, the women sitting up the slope and watching the men below. Here Grettir is said to have heaved an enormous stone. The stone is still shown, and I have seen it. I also know that Grettir never lifted it; for it has clearly been brought there by a glacier. But this is an instance of the way in which stories get magnified in telling. No doubt that Grettir did "put" there some big stone, and as it happened that at this spot there was a great rock standing by itself balanced on one point, in after days folks concluded that this must have been the stone thrown by Grettir.

Grettir, then, was doomed by the court to leave his native land whilst only a boy, and remain in banishment for three years--that is to say, till he was eighteen. He was not over sorry for this, as he was tired of being at home, and he wanted to see the world.

There was a man called Haflid who had a ship in which he intended to sail that autumn to Norway, and Asmund sent to him to ask him to take Grettir out with him.

Haflid answered that he had not heard a good account of the boy, and did not particularly wish to have him in his boat; but he would stretch a point, because of the regard he had for old Asmund, and he would take him.

Grettir got ready to start; but Asmund would not give him much wherewith to trade when abroad, except some rolls of home-made wadmall, a coarse felty cloth, and a stock of victuals for his voyage. Grettir asked his father to give him some weapon; but the old man answered that he did not trust him with swords and axes, he might put them to a bad use, and it would be better he went without till he had learned to control his temper and keep a check on his hand.

So Grettir parted from his father without much love on either side; and it was noticed when he left home that, though there were plenty of folks ready to bid him farewell, hardly anyone said that he hoped to see him come home again--a certain token that he was not liked by those who had seen most of him. But indeed he had taken no pains to oblige anyone and obtain the regard and love of anyone.

His mother was an exception. She went along the road down the valley with him, wearing a long cloak; and when they were alone, at some distance from the house, she halted and drew out a sword from under her cloak, and handing it to Grettir, said: "This sword belonged to grandfather, and many a hard fight has it been in, and much good work has it done. I give it to you, and hope it may stand you in good stead."

Grettir was highly pleased, and told his mother that he would rather have the sword than anything else that could be given him.

Haflid received Grettir in a friendly manner, and he went at once on board; the ship's anchor was heaved, and forth they went to sea.

Now, directly Grettir got on board he looked about for a place where he could be comfortable, and chose to make a berth for himself under a boat that was slung on deck; then he put up his wadmall, making a sort of felt lining or wall round against the wind and spray, leaving open only the side inwards, and inside he piled his provisions and whatever he had; then he lay down there and did not stir from his snuggery. Now, it was the custom in those days for every man who went in a ship to help in the navigation; but Grettir would not only do nothing, but from his den he shouted or sang lampoons--that is, spiteful songs, making fun of every man on board. They were not good-natured jokes, but bitter, stinging ones.

Naturally enough the other men were annoyed, and they were not slow to tell Grettir what they thought of him. He made no other reply than a lampoon.

After the ship had lost sight of land a heavy sea was encountered, and unfortunately the vessel was rather leaky and hardly seaworthy in dirty weather. The weather was squally and very cold, so that the men suffered much. Moreover, they had to bale out the water from the hold, and this was laborious work. They had not pumps in those days.

The gale increased, and the crew and passengers had been engaged for several days and nights in baling without intermission, but Grettir would not help. He lay coiled up in his wadmall under the boat, peering out at the men and throwing irritating snatches of song at them. This exasperated them to such an extent that they determined to take him and throw him overboard. Haflid heard what they said, and he went to Grettir and reproached him, and told him what was menaced.

"Let them try to use force if they will," said Grettir. "All I can say is that I sha'n't go overboard alone as long as my sword will bite."

"How can you behave as you do?" said Haflid. "Keep silence at least, and do not madden the men with your mockery and sneers."

"I cannot hold my tongue from stabbing," said Grettir.

"Very well, then, stab on, but stab me."

"No; you have not hurt me."

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